


All The Rules We Make Are Broken

by DinosaurGummies



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Castiel Loves Dean Winchester, Castiel and Dean Winchester Have a Profound Bond, Episode Fix-it, Grief/Mourning, Hurt Castiel (Supernatural), M/M, Mortal Castiel (Supernatural), Sam is trying, Traumatized Dean Winchester
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-11
Updated: 2020-11-20
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:08:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27513592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DinosaurGummies/pseuds/DinosaurGummies
Summary: Cas is gone, and Dean's not coping.The world might really be ending this time, and Sam needs his brother... but this time, Dean needs something more.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 16
Kudos: 68





	1. Pain Is Deeper Than Before

**Author's Note:**

> By the time I post the first chapter it's already Wednesday... I am not the fastest writer sdfkjld  
> Anyway, I'm having fun anyway. It's called fanfiction because canon doesn't matter, baby. And maybe I'll rework the next chapter to include stuff from tomorrow night's episode.

“I thought you were dead.” Sam’s close on his heels and in full lecture mode, and he really doesn’t appreciate the hollow, aching laugh those words inspire. “Oh, you think that’s funny? Everyone else, everyone else disintegrated, and you can’t pick up the phone, what am I supposed to think? It’s just me and Jack and I couldn’t reach you, do you know how worried I was? I thought you were dead.”

“Almost was.” He shrugs.

“You couldn’t call me back when you were in the clear?”

“Nope.” Dean collapses into a chair. Bed would be better, probably, but he’s honestly amazed he’s made it this far. Dragging himself the rest of the way to his memory foam mattress feels like an insurmountable challenge. 

“Jesus, Dean.”

“Cas is gone.”

The words feel like they come from someone else, because he couldn’t possibly, not without breaking. 

“Jesus, Dean.” Sam repeats, but instead of building frustration, it’s said with a sadness, a weariness. He pulls a chair up close to Dean’s, sits down with their knees knocking together and leans forward to rub at Dean’s arms like he’s in shock, and maybe he is. “What happened?”

“Took one for the team.” He shrugs, and then something cracks. “He did it for me. Sammy, I think-- I think this time, I-- he-- He saved me. It’s the last thing he did. He knew… he was throwing his life away, for mine.”

“Then it’s just the two of us.”

“Jack?” His head snaps up.

“He’s just a kid, Dean… a kid who just lost all his powers and everyone but the two of us. I don’t know how much help he’s realistically going to be, I mean I know he’s going to do everything he can, but he’s… he’s just a kid, and you’re telling me he just lost basically his dad, along with everyone else. It’s going to have to come down to us.”

“I can’t do this without Cas.”

“We’re going to have to. We’re going to have to figure out how to do this without any other hunters--”

“No. I mean _I_ can’t do this, without _Cas_.”

“Well, if you can’t pull yourself together and try, the world’s going to end.”

“Feels like it’s too late.”

“ _Jesus_ , Dean.” The frustration’s back full force, he tugs at his hair and blows out a sigh. “You know, I just saw our friends disappear, I know how bad things look, but the two of us are the last ones in this fight and if there’s any chance of doing something about it, then it’s up to us. Isn’t that how it’s always been? Isn’t that how you’ve always sold it to me? The two of us, saving people?”

“For real this time. And it’s my fault.”

“Dean--”

“He knew it was going to take him. The Empty, that he’d be back there, that this time… He knew this was goodbye.”

“Dean, I really need you to snap out of it for me.” Sam takes his shoulders, giving him one gentle shake. 

“Cas actually… believed I was worth something. And now…”

“Then don’t throw that away. Okay?”

“You can’t understand…”

“Eileen’s gone, too.”

He looks up at Sam again, unable to work words around the feeling that floods him at that. Is Sam comparing them on purpose? Comparing whatever flirtation they have to the bond Dean and Cas share? It’s not right and it’s not fair, but hell if Dean knows what direction to tell him he’s wrong in. Because he and Cas aren’t-- he and Cas don’t-- They weren’t like Sam with Eileen. They never teetered on the brink of a romance. Did they? He can’t even begin to think about that part, of what Cas told him when he said goodbye, it’s too enormous and it hurts too much to take it apart without Cas _here_. More to the point, he’s known Cas so much longer, whatever they have, different as it is, is so much deeper, so much _more_. In all Sam’s history of loss, there’s not a single one Dean honestly thinks he could hold up against Cas, say ‘I understand’, and be right.

“You can’t understand. He’s gone, okay, and if it wasn’t for me, he wouldn’t be.”

“It’s not your fault if people think your life is worth saving, you know.”

Dean takes a deep, shaky breath. “It took him… it took him because of _me_. If he hadn’t loved me, he’d be here right now.”

“But he did love you.” Sam says, like it’s fucking normal, like it doesn’t surprise him for a second. Maybe it’s not-- maybe Sam’s thinking he just means the way he and Dean love each other, or the way Cas loves anything, or… or anything other than what Dean knows is true and can’t bear to think this much about.

His throat is burning with unshed tears, and he can’t do this, how is he supposed to do this? How is he supposed to carry on now, in the face of all this, knowing Cas had loved him, and knowing he’s gone. Gone, the one place Dean can’t follow him…

“You don’t understand.” He shakes his head, and the tears are falling now. 

“Okay. Look… look, why don’t you get some rest now, and… and I’ll think about the next step, and we’ll talk after you’ve had a little time.”

There’s not enough time in the world-- definitely literally now-- for Dean to move past this, but he nods and waves Sam off, because he hasn’t got the strength to do anything else, he hasn’t got it in him to move, and he just wants to cry alone. He can’t hold it off any longer, the terrible understanding of all that he’s lost, and he doesn’t want to do this in front of Sam. There’s something almost physically painful in crying in front of someone, and it’s not always unbearable, if that someone is Sam. There are pains and griefs he could let his brother carry him through. This isn’t one of them.

_Cas_ …

He’s known him so long now, how long… how long had Cas known, or suspected, that what he felt was love, _love_ -love, the kind that has you want to ride off into the sunset with a guy. There are plenty of kinds of love, Dean knows, that can make a man trade his life for someone else’s. But he’d known what Cas was saying, there was no mistaking it. How long had that love been there?

Before Jack. What Cas was saying, that knowing Dean taught him to love the world, humanity, other people… he had to have had those feelings before Jack. Which means he knew he loved Dean before he made that deal for Jack’s life. And he just… he just took it for granted that Dean wouldn’t want him the same way, that he wouldn’t really be happy, so he made it? So he said okay, because he thought happiness was out of his grasp? He thought the love he had, friendship and brotherhood and becoming an adopted dad, that as good as that was, he would never get the last little piece of the puzzle that would make him truly happy?

Was he wrong? Was he right? 

All Dean can say for sure is that he needs him, that he doesn’t know how to carry on without him. There’s a profound emptiness at the idea of Cas so fully beyond his reach, a hurt he knows is going to keep hurting as long as he lives, which is at least probably not that long, the way things are going. What’s left to save in the world, if they could? He wants to be there for Sam, or he recognizes that that’s something he would want, but Cas has hollowed him out with goodbye.

Is that love? 

If he had Cas before him now, if Cas walked through the door and laid it all out there and lived, what would he say to him? I love you, but not like that? I do love you, but I can’t see myself with you? Is that even true?

He _loves_ Cas, but is it a capital letters Love? Is it a grow-old-with-you, holding hands on the porch kind of a love? He never really imagined he could have that. Maybe even if they’d worked it all out before the Empty, he couldn’t have, but could he have accepted that, from Cas?

Cas isn’t a woman. Cas isn’t really a man, either. Cas isn’t anything like anything else, he’s not like other people and he’s definitely not like other angels, and Dean wishes, he _wishes_ now that he could ask himself ‘could I settle down with Cas’ and know the answer’s no. It would be so much easier, and it would still hurt like Hell, a hurt he _knows_ , a thing he can say without hyperbole, but he doesn’t know… he doesn’t know he couldn’t love him back, the way he’s loved.

And so he prods at the hurt of that loss, he digs two fingers into the open wound of Cas’ absence and asks himself what he would do, and what he could feel.

Could he kiss him, the way Cas would want to be kissed?

If he could have him back? Yes.

If he could just have him _back_ , he would take him in his arms, hold onto him so tight, he’d kiss him. Maybe it wouldn’t work out great, maybe it would be awkward, maybe he’d try it and realize it’s not right, it’s not him, but _god_ would he try. 

And if he wanted more, could Dean give it?

If he could have him back?

_Yes_.

For a day, for an hour even, if he could have him back, he would spend whatever time he got making up for every moment Cas thought Dean could never love him. And that kind of thing, he knows it’s not his forte. He doesn’t know how to say this shit, it never feels quite right when he tries. It’s not that he regrets it when he manages to open up, it’s just that he knows he’s bad at it and he doesn’t know how you get good at it. He knows he doesn’t have the words, but he knows now, too, that he if he couldn’t say it, he could show it. That if the universe could give him just one hour more, just one hour more…

He’d say something stupid, like ‘thanks’, or ‘I’m sorry’, something stupid like ‘I love you’, and it wouldn’t sound sweet and profound, it wouldn’t sound like Cas’ ‘I love you’, but wouldn’t Cas know, that he meant it? He’d hold him. He’d hold him, and yeah, he thinks if he kissed him maybe it would be just about right, it would be the thing he’s never let himself look for because Dean’s got one thing in common with Cas, he never imagined himself being _happy_.

Sex?

He knows he could. 

Even if he didn’t enjoy sex with Cas on a purely physical level, it doesn’t mean he wouldn’t crave some part of it… Maybe if Cas had confessed to him any other way, any other time, he’d have gotten caught up in worries and insecurities, he’d have been unable to listen, unable to do right by him, by either of them. Stuck here, with just the memory of him, and the memory of how he’d been frozen, how he’d been unable to say anything useful, how then it was too late… what has he got to lose by admitting to himself that it hurts for a reason? That he’s mourning something more than just a friend, someone who was never quite his brother. Someone who could be just as important. Could have been, if either of them had been able to face it when they might have had a chance.

But he knows himself now, and he knows who he’s been, and he knows there was never really a time where he’d have accepted this, before… well, maybe not before the day he lost him, but was there a point before Jack, before Cas made that deal and sold himself out to the Empty, when Dean could have accepted his love?

Maybe they were always doomed.

He could have loved him. He could have… he wouldn’t have accepted that about himself, when they met, but they’ve known each other eleven damn years and at some point… at some point before now, couldn’t he have?

And the thing is, or one of the things is, he can say ‘maybe the sex would be okay because it would mean being close to someone I care about, even though I wouldn’t like having sex with a man’, but he doesn’t even believe that anymore. Not really. He’s wanted it, and not been able to admit to it. It’s too much, to try and trace it back and figure out the first time he wanted Cas that way, it’s too late and too painful, but he knows it’s been there, it’s been under everything.

God, what he wouldn’t give for just an hour more to say goodbye in. To hold him-- to _be_ held. 

Because that’s the thing, isn’t it, with Cas? His whole life, Dean has been the protector, has pushed himself to be the strong one, has felt he had to be, but he doesn’t have to be that with Cas. Cas is-- was-- powerful, smart, he’d learned the ropes, and as much as Dean might still want to see him safe, Cas doesn’t _need_ him for that. Cas is the one person Dean can let his guard down with. Not the way he does with Sam, because with Sam, even when he drops the walls and lets things get emotional, there’s always a part of him that’s ready to jump between Sam and trouble and there always will be. And no matter how big or how old or how capable Sam gets, he’s always going to be the baby brother Dean needs to look out for. With Cas, he could… he could learn to let someone else be the strong one.

Could have, if he’d ever had the chance, if it wasn’t always too early or too late for them.

When Sam comes to collect him, Dean is on the floor, leaning back against the chair. He hadn’t quite cried himself to sleep, but it had been a close enough thing for a length of time he couldn’t guess at. Not quite sleeping and not quite awake, when he’d slid out of his seat, one arm wrapped around himself and hand gripping his own shoulder, there where Cas’ bloody handprint remains as a final physical reminder of everything… everything.

Everything Dean’s ever had and lost. 

The hand that once gripped him tight and raised him from perdition.

Sam hauls him off the floor without a word, and walks him to his room, doesn’t say a thing even as he brings Dean to the bed where Cas is laid out.

It never even occurs to him to ask how. Without Jack’s powers, _how_? The how doesn’t matter to him, not in this moment. His knees hit the floor, he crawls the last couple of steps, he scrambles to get his hands on Cas again, to feel for any signs of life. Pulse, breathing… he’s warm. He’s _alive_. 

“He’s in pretty rough shape. We might have to do this without him.” Sam says softly, his hand on Dean’s shoulder. 

“Okay.” Dean gulps, nods. He can take a turn to be the strong one for Cas, if it means having him back, if it means getting to lean on him when it’s over. “Okay.”

“Dean… the reason we got him back… He doesn’t belong to the Empty now.”

“Okay.”

“I mean, he… If he’s back on his feet to join us, I don’t think he’s… I don’t think he’s an angel anymore, or it’d still have him.”

“How’d you do that?”

“I didn’t. He had to. I mean, Jack and I, we were going to try, but we didn’t have a lot to go on this time, we got lucky. I thought… once we had him, maybe we ought to bring him back to your room.”

“Thanks.”

“Look… we really need to have a war meeting here about our next move. Come join me in a minute?”

Dean nods. “In a minute. I-- There’s something I need to say to him first.”

“Gotcha.”

Sam closes the door softly, and Dean’s alone with Cas, can only hope somehow he’ll hear him. Whatever state he’s in, whatever he even is now, he’s…

He’s Cas, and Dean owes him an answer.

“Hey.” He whispers, hand moving to Cas’ cheek. “You, uh… you go ahead and rest up, uh… shit. Here I am thinking I’m never going to get you back, swearing up and down if I _did_ , if I had the chance to do things right for even a minute, I would, but now you’re here and even with you unconscious I don’t know what to say. You know you’re it, right? You know that, that bond we have, it’s… You know when I say you’re family, it’s not like… It’s like, when two people _choose_ to be family…”

He sighs, his head dropping to the mattress. His thumb traces over the seam of Cas’ lips, feeling them warm and soft and alive, Cas is here with him _alive_.

“There’s been a lot of time when, if you’d said what you said back there, if I knew what you meant, maybe I’d have to run the other way. But things aren’t like that now. Anyway… Sam and I are going to save the world, maybe. I’d like it if you woke up sometime, but don’t-- don’t worry about it. I’ve got this one. Next apocalypse is yours. Just… keep breathing. Be here, so if I come back… when I come back, I have you to come back to. This isn’t goodbye, you hear me? Because I do, okay? Because I do, I-- I feel that way, about you, I… love you. Maybe I always have. And I’ve got work to do, but-- So this is just… I’ll see you later. Yeah?”

“Hello, Dean.”

If he was any further away, he wouldn’t have heard it. If his thumb wasn’t still there to feel Cas’ lips moving, he might have thought he’d imagined it.

“Cas?” His head jerks up, and then he pulls himself off the floor, sits on the edge of the bed so he can lean over him, so he can watch his eyes blink slowly open and focus in on him. “Holy shit, Cas, I-- Hey, I didn’t… _Hey_.”

Cas smiles. “How are you?”

“Me? I’m-- shit, I’m good, I’m-- _You_ , you’re back!”

“Most of me.” He nods, barely. His eyes flutter closed again, after a brief battle to keep them open. 

“Yeah. Yeah, Sam said he thought… He thought to get out, you had to become something that didn’t… belong.”

“Mm. I believe that I am mortal.”

“Feel free to not answer me right now, but how did you become human?”

“Not human, mortal.”

“Pretend I’m like a really dumb guy and explain how that’s different.”

“You are not ‘dumb’, Dean.”

“That’s why I said pretend.”

The laugh is weak, but it’s there, it’s the most beautiful sound Dean’s ever heard. “You know there are many things which are neither human nor immortal. I… am now one of them. I believe. Not human, but no longer an angel.”

“You’re like your own thing?”

“Time will tell what it means. But yes, so it seems. I can tell you what I know, when I have my strength back. I… I need to get my strength back, if I am to fight by your side.”

“Yeah, you’re not doing that. You’re… We don’t have that kind of time, if you’re healing like a mortal person now. Rest, okay? I’ll let Jack know you’re up.” He bends down, kissing Cas’ forehead. “I’ve got to get to work, but… when this is all over, you know you can-- you can get what you want. Maybe… we both get to be happy?”

“I am very happy.”

“Okay, well… when I get back, it’ll be on the lips. So I’m going to be back.”

“Dean…” Cas catches his hand. His grip is weak, but it holds Dean just the same. “We both get to be happy.”


	2. Or A Night Seem Like A Lifetime

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cas is returned... but a part of Dean is still working to reconcile that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> turns out I got a little something out of s15e19 after all...

Dean looks up from the plans Sam has laid out on the table to see Cas standing there, and it’s only when their eyes meet that he realizes he’d known before he looked, hadn’t heard him, just felt him.

“Hey, hey.” He leaps to his feet, hurries around the table to escort Cas to a chair. “What are you doing up?”

“I _am_ physically fine.”

“Well, you look like you’re about to fall over.”

“I’m fine, Dean. Fatigued, but uninjured.” And his voice is soft, and his smile is soft, and the pressure of his hand is soft as it rests on Dean’s arm, and this… this is what being happy is, even with the end of the world hanging over their heads. “I would like to be appraised of our next steps.”

“Cas…”

“If I have the strength to fight, I will be at your side, I need to know what options we have. Otherwise I cannot be certain, if I would be any help.”

“Yeah, okay. Just… We’ll talk options.” He pulls a chair up close to Cas’. 

“I also wondered… when you said ‘when I get back’, did you mean ‘when next I see you’, or did you mean ‘after we save the world’, because I would like to.”

Dean casts an anxious look over to Sam and Jack, and realizes he’s cupping Cas’ face in his hand, Cas holding his wrist, and there are only so many ways to explain any of this.

“I… I kind of meant after, I thought maybe that would get me through to after. You know. Something to… fight for. Look forward to?”

“Something to fight for.” He nods, squeezing Dean’s wrist. 

“And I was kind of thinking, you know… not in front of the kids.” Dean adds in a mumble, leaning in a little. 

“I see.” Cas’ eyes crinkle up at the corners, a light in his eyes that does something to Dean’s heart, something like the opposite of what almost happened to it only a day ago. “Well that is something to look forward to.”

Sam coughs. “You might as well. _This_? Isn’t exactly subtle.”

“Do you mind?”

“We’ve got Cas, now we have the _rest_ of the world to save.”

“All right, catch us up.” Dean leans back in his chair, his hand finding its way into Cas’, comfortable and familiar, though it’s not like hand-holding has ever really been a thing for them.

Well, okay, a little bit, once. But you know what they say, what happens in purgatory stays in purgatory. He’s not sure if it actually even happened.

He calls a halt to the war meeting when he can feel Cas listing, and Sam frowns and nods. It’s not like they have much of a game plan at this point. They’ve moved on from all the things they don’t have, but the list of what they do is coming up short. They’re stuck playing defense for now.

As much as it’s even possible to.

“You all right to keep doing research?” He asks Sam, pausing to squeeze his shoulder. 

“Yeah, ‘hole up in a bunker’ hasn’t exactly proven to be a winning strategy for us, so… until I have something more, I’m hitting the books. I just… I have to believe that there’s… Somewhere, somehow, there’s an answer. We got Cas back. I can’t stop until we get Eileen back, too. And… I guess the rest of the population of the planet.”

“You find a way and I’ll make it happen. Whatever it takes, we got this.”

“Pretty big turnaround from this morning.”

“Yeah, well. Cas… makes me believe.”

“Even if he and Jack are seriously depowered?” A tentative smile tugs at Sam’s mouth, doesn’t yet reach his eyes. 

“They can form a support group for former beings of phenomenal cosmic power.”

Sam snorts. “Sure. Let’s just make sure we add Chuck to that list.”

“Former being, period.”

They both nod at that, and then Dean splits off to walk with Cas, stopping when they reach his own door-- catching Cas’ hand to stop him as well.

“Hey, so… do you-- You could stay. You could stay with me.”

“I don’t have pajamas.”

Dean does not say any of the obvious things he could say, to that. His brain shorts out when it approaches the very thought. 

“I could-- I have stuff you could borrow.”

“Thank you.” Cas nods. Follows him in and stands there while Dean digs around to find him something, a pair of sweatpants and a tee shirt. And it’s not like it’s weird to change in the same room, it’s not like things are super _different_ , more like…

More like Dean’s never made a conscious decision to keep his back turned, and now it seems like until they decide to go for it, it’s more polite? He doesn’t know whether that’s going to be a big part of things, with them. He’s not really ready to have that conversation, he’s still dealing with the fact that he’s got Cas back at all, and some part of him won’t relax and accept it. There’s still too much hanging over them, and maybe the Empty can’t take him back the way he is, but a lot of other things can. 

“It’s… been some time, since I needed rest like this. And… perhaps it was never like _this_.” Cas says, turning towards him, dressed for bed. There’s an _ache_ at the sight of him, wearing Dean’s faded Zep shirt, his cheap sweatpants with a hole worn through, at the back of the thigh, he remembers it’s there when he sees him from the front. 

There’s an ache at the way these things say ‘you belong to me’, the domesticity, and there’s an ache at the thought that it’s not over yet, that they aren’t safe, and he can’t lose this now, not now. Not when he has Cas standing at the foot of his bed wearing his sweatpants. Not now that they know. It’s not safe yet to give into all those feelings, but they know the feelings are there. They know that once it’s safe, they have each other. He doesn’t want to jinx that somehow.

“Go ahead and sleep. I’ll watch over you.”

“Dean…”

“No, c’mon. It’s my turn to. Besides… you know what I’m like. If we need to kick into high gear first thing in the morning, I’m…”

“Grumpy, waking up?” He quirks an eyebrow. “I’m aware. Rest will still do you good.”

“I don’t-- I’m not tired.”

“ _Dean_.” Cas places his hands at Dean’s waist, turning him, moving him to the edge of the bed. His hands move from waist to shoulders as he urges him to sit. “I will be here when you wake.”

“I didn’t--”

Cas hushes him, one knee on the mattress beside his hip, and his hands move up again, to cradle Dean’s face. 

“You’re worried. I don’t blame you… I don’t. But I _will_ be here.”

“I don’t even understand how you’re here in the first place.” He shakes his head. “How can I trust you won’t-- I’m not used to being able to hold onto a good thing, Cas.”

“It is… hazy.” He admits, one hand still cupping Dean’s face, the other raking through his hair. “But it’s coming back to me. I was able to separate myself from my grace. The Empty kept that, and I was… ejected. Weak… changed. Into what… I am less certain.”

“How?”

“I always come when you call.” He smiles. The barest little uptick at the corner of his mouth, but on Cas, it speaks volumes. The warmth in his eyes, the unmasked adoration. 

“I didn’t…”

“I heard you.” His hands keep moving, soft, over Dean’s face, his hair. Like he’s some skittish horse Cas is trying to gentle. “I _felt_ you. _One hour more_ , you asked for me for only that, you needed me. What else could I do?”

“You gave up… like, a _big_ part of yourself for that. For me.”

“Yes. I always come when you call.”

There’s too much emotion, at that. Emotions Dean can’t put names to or sort out. All he can do is take Cas by the waist, feel the warmth of his body through the borrowed tee shirt, _hold_ him just because the thought of anything taking him back now is enough to make him sick. He hadn’t even been praying _to_ Cas, and still he heard him? How much did he feel, when he heard Dean grieving him? Did he know he was loved, did he know?

“Cas…” He takes a deep breath. “Whatever happens… if you’re mortal now, you can’t go putting yourself in front of me, because I can’t do that again. Hell, I couldn’t do it this time, I-- Whatever happens, don’t ask me to lose you again.”

“I don’t know that I can make that promise. I don’t know how to not protect you.”

“Protecting yourself is protecting me, okay? Whatever happens… we both end up in the same place.”

“We’ll have to, won’t we? We’ve promised something.” His lips grace Dean’s forehead, feather-light. The center, mirroring the kiss Dean left him with when he was resting up before, and then just over one eyebrow, then at the hairline… tiny kisses that spread out patternless from that center point like he means to cover every inch. “And until then… Close your eyes…”

They’re closed, Cas’ lips brush over his eyelids. The bridge of his nose, the apples of his cheeks, he slowly works his way down, bypassing his lips and ending with his chin.

“ _Cas_.” Dean’s hands flex at his waist, unsure about pulling him closer, holding him tighter, wanting desperately and feeling adrift. 

“Shh…” And Cas kisses his cheeks again, kisses away fresh tears. Any other time those might have embarrassed him, but the two of them are really past that, now, aren’t they? “ _Dean_. My most beloved friend… my _most beloved_. I believe… that we will both rest better, if you lie with me.”

“Do you mean literally, or biblically?”

“I mean you need your sleep.” He smiles against Dean’s cheek. 

“But, eventually, that’s something you’re… into, right? If we make it through this?”

“When you are ready to kiss my lips, my beloved, I will be ready to offer my body with them.”

“That’s fucking smooth.”

“Lie down. Sleep beside me.”

He nods, and Cas leaves the very cozy clinch they’d been in to move to the other side of the bed. It’s a tight fit for the two of them, but Dean doesn’t think he’s going to mind. They settle under the covers, facing each other in the dark, and Dean’s hand spreads over Cas’ chest. A heartbeat. Proof of life. He has him back, whatever he has him back as, he has him back alive. Maybe not human, but a hell of a lot closer to it than to anything else. 

“Thank you again, for lending me your clothes.” Cas’ voice is soft, sounds almost sleepy.

“You should keep ‘em. I mean-- you should keep the shirt. We can get you better pants later, but-- the shirt’s yours.”

“Dean…”

“No, I-- I want you to keep it. I’ve got other shirts, I can get-- I want you to have this one.” He traces over where he knows the faded outline of Icarus’ wing to be. “Kind of suits you.”

“ _Thank_ you.”

“Though… you probably don’t still have wings, huh?”

“Possibly not. And even if I did, they might not be so useful… I fear I haven’t got the strength to check just yet. And… perhaps I should check when I’m somewhere where I won’t knock all of your belongings over.”

“You can knock my belongings over anytime, handsome. You a big spoon or a little spoon?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Spoon-- So that we both fit in this bed, and don’t wind up breathing into each other’s faces all night, if we were facing the same way, would you rather be holding me, or like, me holding you, or…?”

“I would rather hold you.”

“Okay. Okay, cool.” Dean says, rolls over with his back to Cas and waits for the feel of an arm around him. He’s not sure it is cool, really, isn’t sure he can relax without holding onto Cas, without being able to turn on a light and see him and know he’s back, but then he feels the full length of Cas’ body settle against his back, feels the softest brush of lips against the back of his neck, a little rasp of a stubbly chin, warm breath stirring his hair as Cas nuzzles the back of his head, and the firmness of that arm wrapped around him, that hand spread over his heart, and he relaxes.

Cas has him. He’s back, he’s here, he’s alive, he’s _here_ , and he’s not letting Dean go. It’s safe to close his eyes. It’s safe to let go. He can rest his arm over Cas’, can _breathe_ again.

He considers asking Cas to just move in, and isn’t sure if it’s too early or way too long in coming. 

“You can keep the pants, too.” He says instead. “Since we’re probably not going clothes shopping any time soon.”

“I appreciate that.”

“Yeah, sweet dreams.”

“And you.” Cas’ lips brush the back of his neck again. “ _Beloved_.”

Dean sighs, and feels a little more tension drain away. 

When he wakes, he’s lying on his back, heart just about beating out of his chest, the lights are on, and Cas is leaning over him, stroking his face.

“Dean? You’re safe. You had a nightmare.”

He doesn’t remember anything about it, but he can guess what it was. He pulls Cas down in a crushing hug, they let out a grunt in unison as Cas’ weight collapses against him. 

“You’re here.” He presses his cheek against Cas’. “You’re here.”

“I’m here.” 

“Okay. I’m good.” He says, but hazy nightmare memories are starting to filter back to him, and maybe ‘good’ isn’t the word.

“Dean…” And then there are lips, trailing along his jaw, a kiss that stops short of reaching his mouth, but it lingers, tender and intimate. Cas bears some of his weight on his arms, still lying atop Dean, and it’s not exactly ‘sexy’, or he doesn’t think it’s trying to be, but it’s a lot. “I promised you I would be here when you woke…”

“Yeah. You did. I just… I dreamed… I dreamed I thought you came back. Only-- only I went to you and it was Lucifer, and… and you were still-- and I never got you back.”

“I’m back.” He murmurs, and this time, the kiss placed just off to the side of Dean’s lips is deliberately sweet and slow and definitely, definitely intimate. 

Like, for not being a mouth-on-mouth thing, it’s kind of sexy. He still doesn’t think that’s the intent behind it, but it helps take his mind off his dreams. 

“Cas?”

“Yes?”

“Think you could keep doing that? Least until my heart rate goes back to normal. Or, comes back out the other side of normal but in a nice way?”

“Could I keep kissing you?”

“Yeah.”

“I think it can be arranged, Dean…”

The _focus_ that Cas pours into it is palpable. Dean shakes off the false memories, the nightmare phone call, rushing to find him and not knowing what shape he’d be in, getting Lucifer instead… it had been bad enough to rocket him into wakefulness, but it melts away again into nothing as Cas proceeds to make love to his cheek. He holds onto him, runs a hand up and down his back, his sides, grabs _handfuls_ of him as he fights the urge to drag him down and grind up against him like they were teenagers…

Not even a kiss on the lips yet and he feels ways he hasn’t felt since… No, he feels how he’s never felt before. But there’s some crossover, with how it felt to be discovering sex for the first time. 

His hand rakes against Cas’ upper back and there’s a _moan_ , guttural and earthy, against his cheek, and they both freeze.

“Okay, well… mission accomplished.” Dean coughs, releasing him. “I do not remember what I was dreaming about, and I’m pretty sure I know what my next dream’s gonna be.”

“Good. I’m glad to hear it.” Cas rolls back off him, they both scoot and settle.

There’s not a lot of room, to be lying side by side on their backs, but there’s enough. At least for a little breather. Cas’ hand finds its way to Dean’s, he laces their fingers together. One little squeeze, one answering squeeze back. 

“That was kind of intense, huh?”

“Yes. Did you not expect it to be?”

“I’ve never gotten a boner from a kiss on the cheek.” Dean answers, because the years between twelve and fifteen don’t count. 

“I am what I am now because of you.” And he says it so matter-of-fact, like nothing about that is super fucking romantic. “It stands to reason that the bond between us would therefore make for… intensity. I am not an angel, but I am _not_ human, I… I can still _feel_ you, in a way that is difficult for me to explain. I am bound to you by choice, but I am bound.”

“Kinky.”

“Hardly.”

“Okay. Well… we can figure out what that means later. You’re setting the bar pretty up there for when we pull this whole thing off and we get to celebrate.”

Cas laughs softly, and brings Dean’s hand up to his lips. “ _I_ am?”

“Again, never gotten a boner from a kiss on the cheek before.”

“ _Dean_. I measured you against heaven and made my choice. I think it possible we have both set the bar rather high. But… I believe we will be good.”


	3. Hands and Faces, Earth and Sky

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Morning breaks, plans are made and argued, and the nature of Cas' current state is examined.

“Dean! Up and at ‘em! Let’s roll!”

Dean groans, burying himself more firmly in his blankets and Cas’ chest. Which is not the position he’d been in the last time he fell asleep, but he’s not complaining, either. The shirt he’d given him is soft, Cas is warm, he smells comfortingly familiar, a little musky and a little weirdly ethereal still. The tang of ozone and the sweetness of petrichor, like there’s a coming storm lurking underneath a human skin. 

“Dean!” Sam shouts again from the doorway.

“You’re being summoned.” Cas peels the blankets back from over Dean’s head. _Traitor_.

“What time is it?” He groans. Fucking early is what time it is.

“ _Morning_ , let’s go!”

“Don’t you knock? What if we were… you know, intimate?”

“You’re not exactly a morning person. The odds of you being active were low.”

“Well what if we were naked after being intimate last night?”

“The last time I saw Cas he looked ready to pass out, I didn’t think it was likely. Also, I’ve gotten pretty good at not looking at your naked ass in all the time we’ve been hunting. War room, like, five minutes ago, come on.”

“Why did you say ‘what if’?” Cas asks sleepily, as Dean reluctantly pries himself away. “I found last night to be very intimate.”

“I meant what if we were banging. You know, like… the kind of intimate Sam doesn’t need to see. You go back to sleep.” He tucks the blankets back up around him, and pushes him gently back down when he starts to sit. “I mean it, you need your rest.”

“I think… I require food.”

“Yeah, okay, good idea. Sam, there better be coffee. I’m not putting pants on at whatever the fuck o’clock for no coffee.”

“I don’t care if you show up in a bathrobe, just show up. You know, with how early you turned in, even you should be able to function at this hour.”

“Bitch.” Dean retorts, but the door is already closed. 

“Your brother is worried.” Cas chides gently, putting his clothes back on with more grace than Dean is managing, even if the end result is as rumpled as ever. “This is how he is managing his own grief. He fears that if he slowed his momentum, he would never be able to begin again… and he hopes that if he occupies his mind with research and planning, he won’t have to think about what’s lost.”

“You still got your…” Dean wiggles his fingers. “Aura-reading emotion powers?”

“I have learned to speak fluent Winchester.” He shrugs, and takes Dean’s arm. “And I understand how he may feel… had I failed to save you, I would have a very difficult time… I would be unable to rest.”

Dean guesses it’s not so different, from when Sam lost Jess. He’d been driven. The difference is, this time, he’s holding onto the hope of undoing what Chuck did to everyone. It’s not like they can spend their lives on an empty planet after they kick the guy’s ass, after all, they need to bring the world _back_ , somehow. He has no idea how, that part’s beyond him, but maybe it’s not beyond Sam.

He walks Cas to the kitchen, and they work around each other to make breakfast, because Dean’s pretty sure Sam hasn’t thought about breakfast and he wouldn’t be surprised if Jack hasn’t asked him about it. Before Sam can bitch at him again about how much time he’s taking, he shoves a plate at him, eggs and toast and bacon. 

It’s not the prettiest breakfast, but it smells good enough. 

They ferry plates of food and mugs of coffee to the table, so that Cas can just sit with Jack for a while. They’ve had some time, of course-- while Dean had tried to focus and plan with Sam the day before, Jack had sat over Cas, presumably they’d spoken some. Dean doesn’t want to intrude on father-son time, as much as there’s an anxiety that buzzes under his skin every moment he’s not holding onto Cas himself, but once he’s got his own breakfast and coffee and there’s nothing else to do except sit down with everyone else, he pulls his chair close at Cas’ other side. Relaxes marginally when Cas shoots him a little smile. 

“This is wonderful.” He says, and his voice is quiet, but the moan under it is still… _noticeable_.

“I mean it’s bacon.”

“I… had forgotten, tasting. Enjoying. It appears now that my body requires food, I find the process very enjoyable.”

Okay, Dean was going to have to deal with finding _that_ sexy later. Like, way later. After saving the world later. Maybe never.

Also, how soon he can get up from the table might depend on how often Cas licks bacon grease and toast crumbs off his fingers, but he’s going to try not to think about that.

He still lets Cas take some of _his_ bacon, which is a level of love he thought he’d never get.

“Are you ready?” Sam asks pointedly. 

“I’m awake.” He coughs, looking studiously into his coffee cup and hoping that was Sam’s ‘you’re the worst person before ten AM’ voice and not Sam’s ‘I need to know less about your sex life’ voice.

“Not what I asked. I need you awake enough to pay attention to a battle plan, because we’re going to end this, and we’re going to get everyone back.”

“Just you and me?”

“No, we need the team together on this.”

“Whoa, do what? That’s a big negatory, Sammy, we are not taking Cas out there like this.”

“ _That_ is a ‘big negatory’, Dean.” Cas interjects, complete with air quotes. “Where you go, I go.”

“You’re not in any shape to--”

“I will be.”

“Dammit, Cas, I can’t-- Sam, this plan, we can do it with just three of us, can’t we?”

“Technically.” Sam frowns, looking between them. “But Cas needs to be one of them.”

“I believe we were in agreement last night. When this is over, we both end up in the same place. What better way of ensuring it than by my being at your side?”

“We’ll wind up in the same place if you stay here. Either I come back fine or the world ends.”

“Or Sam and Jack return without you, and I… I have not come this far to lose you, not like that. Please, Dean… if I asked _you_ to stay behind, would you do it?”

“Well, no, but I have to be there, I’m-- I mean, I do, right?”

“Yeah.” Sam confirms. “You and I have to draw him out, offer him what he wants and draw out the bargaining to keep him distracted… and then Cas takes him out when he’s focused on us.”

“ _What_?”

“He’s doing a lot better already. And if Chuck wants to leave us twisting in the wind, that gives us more time for him to rest up. Think about it, Dean--”

“I’m fucking thinking about it!” He roars, chair clattering backwards as he rockets to his feet. “You don’t have any idea what you’re doing, you’re just offering Cas up as a sacrificial lion-- again!”

The plan itself is as solid as anything else they could have come up with-- for what little that’s worth. It’s just that it’s hard for Dean to think about anything that isn’t Cas, in danger, when he’s just got him back. Cas, who Chuck doesn’t want for his grand plan the way he needs Dean and Sam’s compliance. Cas, who’s frail now, depowered, highly vulnerable. And Sam, putting him in harm’s way when they don’t know what the fuck they’re doing, because they can’t break into the fucking book.

He can still see it all too clearly when he shuts his eyes, the beatific smile as the Empty enveloped him, the stillness left once he was gone, struggling to breathe when all the air in the room seemed to be gone with him. He’s done this too many times already, he can’t do it again. The last time before this damn near killed him and he had no clue there was more for the asking there, that there was such a real, profound, human love waiting for him. He just knew somewhere along the line he’d forgotten how to survive losing his best friend. He just knew, in a way that made him sick to think about, that if he was offered the choice between Cas’ life and Sam’s, he wouldn’t have a fast answer ready anymore, and no matter what he did, the choice would break him. 

“Cas is the fly in Chuck’s ointment.” Sam says evenly, jaw clenching. “He’s the one thing Chuck’s never been able to predict, or control. We _know_ that. Maybe we don’t know what’s in the book, but we know that. So it has to be him.”

“And what if it isn’t? He’s _mortal_ , Sam.”

“So are you. So am I. So is Jack. We’re all just normal humans now, but if we can’t do this, then what’s the point? What are we living for if we can’t pull off one last win?”

_I’m living for him_ , he wants to say, and can’t. Can’t, because it’s… it’s an enormous thing to say, even if they’re not exactly secret, even if he could say it to Cas in private. Can’t, because Sam doesn’t have that option. His shot at a happy ending depends on beating Chuck, or bargaining with him. And Dean doesn’t know which is crazier.

“Dean.” Cas rises, his hand firm on Dean’s shoulder. Which is all it really takes to bring him to heel, at least long enough to let Cas say his peace. “I’m not afraid.”

“Really? Because I am.”

“... I should say, I am not afraid that I put myself at undue risk by taking an active role in this plan. I am only afraid of seeing my family hurt-- of losing you. Making a plan where I can do something, to protect you, Jack… Sam? This is not something I am being pressed into, Dean, I gladly volunteer for the chance to save the world with you. And for you.”

They really need to have a talk about Cas saying beautiful, profound things to him, because Dean doesn’t know how he can keep on taking this. 

“We don’t have a weapon.”

“I’m working on that.” Sam promises.

“That’s not good enough.”

“We won’t make a move until I’ve got something. But we have to be ready. If he comes to us? We have to have a plan in place, even if what we’ve got isn’t very good.”

“It’s not, for the record.”

“Objection noted. Fortunately for the rest of us, your approval isn’t what matters, Castiel’s is.”

Dean turns his back on Sam, arms crossed tight across his chest, and leans against the table rather than picking his chair back up. Cas pulls his own chair over, sits with his legs bracketing Dean’s. He places his hands on Dean’s thighs, just above the knee, his thumbs moving in slow, calming sweeps. 

“Our options are limited.” He says, looking up at Dean with those big blue eyes, the eyes that pierced straight through him the first time they ever met and haven’t stopped since. Mortal or not, when he looks at Dean, Dean feels like he’s seeing his soul. “We still have to try. If we ever want the freedom to breathe, to live our lives, whatever that means, then… I have to try.”

“I just got you back.” He looks away. “I know I said I’d do anything to have you back for even an hour, but I’m not…”

“Dean. Look at me.” Cas’ voice is gentle, his hands are warm, and Dean wants to keep his walls up, but he can’t help himself. He can’t refuse him. “There… I understand… there have been times when my actions have broken the faith between us. To ask you to believe in me now when I am… less than what I was, is an enormous thing. To ask for you to have faith at all, when our creator has turned on us, when time and time again you have been asked so much of and repaid in pain, maybe that is too much. But I believe in you. I believe in us. All of us… I have faith. Not the faith I was made for. But the faith I was made for was shaken. This, this thing that I feel now? It may be the only solid thing.”

“Okay, well, you’re… an asshole, for believing in us like that.” Dean says, but his arms had unfolded through that speech and his hands are on Cas’ cheeks. “And you gotta stop with the speechifying. Only so much of that a man can take.”

“Forgive me.” He smiles. 

“Every damn time.”

“ _Beloved_.” Cas’ whisper is a low rumble, he tilts his head to kiss the heel of Dean’s hand. “Believe in us?”

“It’s not like I don’t, I just… I don’t feel… ready, for this.”

“I’m not so certain we ever get to feel ready, for this.” He shrugs. “But we have each other, all four of us. And whether or not we are ready, I take comfort in that. And I had hope… that I could give comfort.”

“Dunno. Maybe. Sure. Just… no dying.”

“I won’t if you won’t.”

“I won’t if you won’t.” Dean echoes, and Cas rises, and tugs him the rest of the way onto his feet.

“Come.” He says, quiet and steady, and Dean would follow him into Hell, what’s he going to do, refuse to follow him through the bunker?

They have some time, at least, to prepare, gear up… to let Cas recover further, before they purposefully go out and shout for Chuck’s attention. Not that there’s much gearing up to _do_ , outside of Sam’s continuing weapon research, they’ve got one shot at getting it right. 

Step one is post-breakfast dishes. Cas helps tidy up the kitchen in silence, but the silence is comfortable. Meditative, if Dean was a meditative guy. Calming, because Cas fills up the space. Cas makes the kitchen feel full and bright and warm when it’s just the two of them putting things right again. Jack and Sam bring dishes in, and then Sam goes to do more research, and Jack sticks close to Cas.

It’s Jack who suggests they watch a movie to help take his mind off of everything, and he has to admit, he’d be worse than useless if Sam asked him to help research the ideal god-killing weapon now. 

“Cas?”

Cas hesitates a moment, and then nods. “Perhaps it will be… recuperative.”

“Yeah. Put your feet up, kick back… turn your brain off for a while and just watch something and… heal.”

Dean gives Jack a few movies to choose between, as they get settled in. The Dean-cave has changed, in the years they’ve made the bunker home-- become more of a family den, with the addition of Jack to their lives, the two recliners swapped out for a couch, a couple plush ottomans. It’s not the retreat of manly relaxation he’d once envisioned… but aside from the lack of a beautiful ultra-hi-def TV, the things that aren’t as he once envisioned are better. And if he’s honest, the old clunker they have now is just fine for watching movies made before ultra-hi-def was a thing.

“C’mere, sweetheart.” He whispers the words in Cas’ ear, enjoys his own turn to be somehow, inexplicably, an irresistible force to be followed. Cas tucks himself under Dean’s arm, and rests his head on Dean’s shoulder, and they stretch their legs out together, feet on a shared ottoman, as Jack starts the movie. 

Jack settles at Cas’ other side, where he can stay close, where he can look to him frequently just to be reassured that Cas is there and doing fine, an impulse Dean understands well. Holding onto him, being able to lean into each other, it feels like it’s the tether keeping him this side of sane. 

He doesn’t know how not to be scared, of what’s coming. He’s so used to losing love, he’d given up on asking for even a fleeting imitation, he’d learned not to hold onto too much hope. Now, with Cas back from the Empty, and all that after telling him he deserves love, that he’s not just capable of it but good at love and he should get it back, that he _has_ it back… The problem isn’t that he thinks the fight against Chuck is hopeless, the problem is that a little bit of hope could kill him, if Chuck doesn’t do it himself. If he loses Cas and there’s no getting him back. If he were to lose Sam, or Jack, he would be devastated… and it would be different. He knows from experience it’s different. Losing Sam puts a fight into him, get him back or die trying, but losing Cas? Especially the last couple of times, losing Cas, it saps the strength right out of him, drains the color from the world. 

Hope? Faith? Those are concepts so utterly tied to Cas that Dean doesn’t know where to look for them if he hasn’t got him. If he taught Cas about love, about happiness, well… Cas has changed him just as much. Of course it’s terrifying to face losing that. But he’s always dealt with terrifying before, why can’t he man up about it this time? Why can’t he turn his own brain off for a movie?

Cas’ hand comes to rest over his stomach, _warm_ , Dean can’t figure how he puts out so much warmth now that he’s just a guy, without angelic grace. He turns his head, nuzzles into Cas’ hair.

“Hey…” He whispers, and Cas presses closer, just slightly, in answer. “About what you said before, about-- about breaking the faith. You gotta know that ain’t-- You gotta know… any time I-- You’re all I have faith in. _Not_ for being an angel-- and I don’t got any less faith in you now than I ever did, I just-- You’re you. And you believe in me and I believe in you. Exactly how you are, whatever you are. But I need you, Cas. I can’t lose you.”

“Thank you, Dean. Your faith is… it’s much appreciated. More than I can say. As for what I am…”

“Last time you lost your grace, you were human. Now you don’t think?”

“When I was human, I saw you as a human… I saw everyone as a human sees. I couldn’t feel you, not the way I… My awareness of you now is as it always has been, as an angel. But the… the ‘aura-reading emotion powers’, as you put it… whatever it is, it only works with you.”

“Really?” Dean breaks out into a grin in spite of himself, hiding it in Cas’ hair. “Just me, huh?”

“Yes. I have earthly needs, I lack my heavenly powers, but our bond remains…”

“Profound?”

“Precisely.”

“Cool.” He rests his hand over Cas’, and keeps it there for the rest of the movie. When the credits have finished rolling, Dean offers Cas a hand up from the couch. “Hey… let’s get you a nap before lunch.”

“That’s hardly--”

“Please. I just… If you’re going to kill god, I just think you should take every available opportunity to… you know. Human stuff. Or-- not exactly human this time stuff. Eat. Sleep. Recover from… dunno, trauma.”

He touches Dean’s face, fixing him with a look, unreadable but so familiar. 

“The Empty is designed to show you all you regret. But I was able to free myself of my greatest regret before it took me-- and I spared myself one greater still, in ensuring you would live. So… it was a much less unpleasant stay, this time around. Will it be a great weight off your mind if I ‘nap’?”

“Figure it will be. If it’s in my bed.”

The smile Cas gives him at that is downright _flirtatious_. Granted, flirtatious on Cas doesn’t look like flirtatious on anyone else, but still, Dean _sees_ it now. 

They head for his room, his hand at the small of Cas’ back for most of the walk

“I really wish you wouldn’t do this.” He blurts out, steps from the door. “Fighting Chuck, just-- there’s gotta be another way. Something where you’re _safe_. Safer.” 

“I appreciate that, but I have weighed my options.”

“Okay, but I think you’re not used to this thing where you could die, very easily. Okay? You were real hard to kill a couple days ago, and how’d that go?”

“Technically I wasn’t ‘killed’.”

“You could have fucking fooled me, Cas.” 

“Forgive me, that was… hardly the time for technicality. But I am not any more fragile than you are.”

“Yeah, but he needs me alive.”

“So that he can watch you die. Something I cannot allow.”

They pause, leaning in the doorframe together and staring each other down, arms folded, and it strikes him that this is their first fight as a couple, really, and he has no idea what to do with that, but so what else is new?

“If you die, I’m taking my shirt back.” He says, because why not make the dumbest, pettiest argument possible?

“That would be practical.”

“Dammit, you’re not supposed to agree with me, you’re supposed to… agree with me. I mean, about-- About maybe staying safe for once.”

“If you believe for a moment that I could leave you now… please tell me where I’ve failed. How should I love you better? There is _nowhere_ I will not follow you. Either we both live, or we both die, but I will not sit here wondering which it is. I will be with you.”

“Don’t… don’t put me through this.”

“Ask me for anything else. Don’t ask me to leave you to this without me. It’s the only thing I could never give you. I have only ever been good for one thing, and it’s this. It’s what I know, it’s what I want… it’s something I can still do. I can still stand by you.”

Dean breaks first, in the ensuing staredown-- breaks pretty quickly. Unfolds his arms so that he can cup Cas’ face between his hands.

“What are you talking about? Good for-- Are you kidding me right now? Are you kidding me? You don’t get to sell yourself short like that, not after everything-- not after everything.”

“You are my sun.”

“Weird and not sexy.”

“ _Sun_ , the-- with a ‘u’-- If I am Icarus. You are the point I strive to reach, and the thing that will burn my wings away, and the love I will die for, and that is the story.”

“That story sucks.”

“You said Icarus suited me.”

“Well you are taking that out of context. Just, way out of context. Okay, you can’t-- you can’t _say_ that to me, I can’t be-- I don’t want to burn you.”

“My eyes are wide open. They have been… and I know where I belong.”

He hauls Cas in at that, kisses his cheek with the same deliberate slowness Cas had treated him to the night before. One kiss, then two, three kisses, then four. Until he’s shaking, until he has to wrench himself away and gulp down air and deal with the fact that it takes so little to strike him so deeply.

“This is some real Jane Austen shit, you know that? We don’t even get to first base and I’m… you know.” He folds his arms again, looks away. “When we actually lock lips, I don’t know what’s gonna happen, but I hope it happens behind closed doors, that’s all I’m saying.”

“We can ‘lock lips’ whenever you want us to.”

“Nah, nah, it’s… it’s like, a luck thing, now. Starting to feel like we really can’t die until we do it, so… don’t wanna jinx this thing if you’re gonna be putting it on the line.”

Cas murmurs something, in no language Dean can make heads or tails of, but even if the words go in one ear and out the other, the meaning sticks, the warmth and the amusement and the desire-- not to do anything that would count towards jinxing the situation, but to pull Dean back to bed, to lie there together.

“Sure thing.” He says, and lets himself be drawn in. Locks the door behind them and strips down to tee shirt and boxers, watches the ceiling as Cas changes back into the old sweats and the Icarus tee. 

“Before, you asked if I was my own thing.” Cas lays his head on Dean’s chest, wraps an arm around him. “I have thought that over.”

“Well, I mean, you gotta be, right?”

“I believe I am _your_ own thing. Castiel is an angel, a being without free will… one incapable of defying God. But… _Cas_ , Cas is very close to human, in the ways which matter most.”

“You’re your own man, Cas. I’m just glad to be a part of that.”

“You are a tremendous part of that. And a tremendous part of me.”

“Get some sleep, sweetheart.” He kneads at Cas’ shoulder, before wrapping him up in a firm hold. “I’ll watch over you this time.”


	4. How We Live And How We Die

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Team Free Will takes on Chuck. 
> 
> It doesn't go well.
> 
> Still, a broader picture is beginning to come together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the last chapter written before watching the finale, though in the editing, there is a bit that I added that's a bit in response to how things went down...
> 
> So when I do finally finish this I'll probably write at least one other finale fix, but I have a list of other ideas I want to tackle. 
> 
> Anyway, feel free to scream with me in the comments, like... as much as I'd love to know what people think of my first SPN fic I am also down to just talk to other people who are emotional about this.

Sam’s plan turns out to be _shit_.

Which is exactly what Dean told him would happen, it’s exactly what he said, he said they shouldn’t do this, and he was fucking _right_.

“This is really disappointing.” Chuck clicks his tongue and shakes his head and telekinetically snatches Cas from ten feet away, swings him around from where he’d been creeping up from behind and slams him to his knees on the ground, between where he stands and where Dean is. “I mean, it’s like you guys think I’m _stupid_. I’m your _god_ , I know when someone’s sneaking up behind me.”

“I shouldn’t have stepped on that branch.” Cas shrugs, says it all casual, which would be very cool and sexy of him if Dean’s heart wasn’t hellbent on hammering itself straight out of his chest. 

“You probably shouldn’t have.” Chuck agrees. Snaps his fingers and watches Cas writhe. “What’s this? Is this…?”

“From the book.” Sam lies, as another snap of Chuck’s fingers sends the blade skittering out of Cas’ reach. “Did you think we were stupid?”

“I _know_ you’re stupid. I made you. How did you--?”

“Billie.” Dean jumps in. “I already struck the killing blow, so she gave up and told us. Course, she planned on taking us with her. Didn’t work out that way.”

“Yeah, it was supposed to… but you know Billie. She wasn’t so good at playing by the rules, either. And that’s why she’s gone. _You_ were supposed to be gone.” He takes a couple more steps towards Cas, flings Dean back with a casual gesture when he tries to run forward. “Castiel… such a _disappointment_. I mean, you’re never the _best_ angel, but you’re usually _adequate_. This version of you? You just can’t,” Chuck gestures, Cas’ head snaps to the side. “Do.” and again. “Anything.” Again, and Cas collapses to the ground. "Right.”

“Let him go!” Dean manages at last, hoarse, pushes himself off the ground. “Let him go, asshole, you need me to give you what you want? Let him go.”

“Yeah… no.”

“Wh-- what do you mean _no_? Look, no tricks, no stabby-stabby, I’m here offering to kill my own brother, or-- or be killed, or whatever it is you _want_ , just _stop_.”

“And the rest of the world.” Sam prompts. 

“Mm-hm, but I’m _bored_ with that. I’m on this now. Because you, you haven’t been playing. But now? Now I can say dance, little monkey-man, and you’ll dance. After all the time I’ve spent pushing you, and pushing you, and trying to get you to play ball, why would I give this up? I finally get it, I get your real weakness. I get what makes this little troublemaker _tick_.” 

At that, Cas convulses as if struck with something else, something big. Dean can’t get the rest of the way to his feet, against whatever psychic godly woo-woo pressure is emanating from Chuck, but he can crawl, on the ground, even though it feels like he’s trying to push through a brick wall, he crawls until he can’t crawl any further, until all he can do is reach out, until he can just get a hand around Cas’ ankle. 

“Let him go. You got me, you got me, just let him go.” He pleads, feels a crushing pressure hold him to the ground. 

“No tricks.” Chuck smiles down at him. “No stabby-stabby. Well… you can’t. I took your god-stabber. Guess that book wasn’t so useful after all. Guess you’re not so smart.”

“Guess I’m not.” He grunts, struggling to push himself even an inch nearer to Cas. He can hear a soft little sob from behind him, Jack. “ _Enough_ … you’ve hurt him enough.”

“I probably have. It’s so… _weird_. I mean, he wasn’t so fragile, before. Kind of… fun.”

Chuck kicks Cas once, hard, Dean hears the meaty thud of the impact this time, the weak whimper. And then Chuck is gone and Dean can move, they can all move. He scrambles up to his knees and crawls the rest of the way, to carefully pull Cas up into his lap, into his arms. 

“Hey… hey.” His hand moves to Cas’ cheek, shaking. There are bruises, blood… he was only physically touched the once, but each one of the blows Chuck delivered without touching him looks to have counted for three. “I gotcha. I gotcha, sweetheart, you’re okay now.”

None of them are okay now. 

But he can’t think about that yet.

Jack is kneeling next to them now, eyes wide and wet, uncertain. Dean can feel Sam at his back, a moment of hesitation before there’s a firm, steady hand on his shoulder. 

“I should try…” Jack looks from Cas to Dean. “I should try to heal him.”

“It’s okay, kid. We know you’d do it if you could. It’s not your fault you ain’t got your powers now.”

“Let’s get him inside.” Sam says softly. “Here, let me help.”

“Now what?”

“Now nothing. We don’t have a plan. We don’t have a weapon. We don’t have a bargaining chip. We got nothing.” Dean frowns, but he lets Sam help him to carry Cas, Jack hurrying ahead to let them back inside. 

Jack brings a first aid kit and some towels to Dean’s room, and starts running hot water, and Sam gets Cas’ boots off while Dean removes his shirt as gently as humanly possible. He perches beside him on the bed and tries not to break down.

“I could still try.” Jack offers.

“No… kid, you don’t have to stick around and see this. Go on.”

“It’s… all right.” Cas nods. “Dean’s… right, you shouldn’t… have to see me like this.”

“I’ll take Jack. We’ll… we’ll make some soup, or something.” Sam says, though they don’t leave without handing Dean the towels, one wetted through with the hot water. 

“We shouldn’t have done this.” Dean frowns, taking in the sight of him, all the cuts and bruises he hadn’t known were there. One spreading out already where he’d been kicked, yes, but just how badly had he been injured on sheer god-thought-power alone?

“We had to try.”

“Shh…” He dabs carefully at the blood where he finds it. “We should have waited. We had nothing. What was Sam thinking?”

“Your brother’s smart.”

“My brother’s an idiot.”

“Chuck… thinks… we lost our only weapon.”

“Are you fucking kidding me right now?” Dean hisses, though he’s just as gentle in cleaning Cas up. “He smacked you down like it was nothing and I couldn’t even get to you, let alone… I don’t know! Help, in any way! We started out without a weapon!”

“But he thinks… there’s nothing left for us to try.”

“And what good’s trying supposed to do us, huh? We can’t read the damn book. Is it just gonna be trial and error until he doesn’t think us trying is funny anymore? And that doesn’t even start on how we get everything else back if he doesn’t want to deal.”

“Dean…”

“Sorry, to rain on your parade, I just-- I don’t see the good from where I’m standing.”

“The good is there.” Cas’ hand finds his leg, for a clumsy pat. “We’re still… alive.”

“Yeah, and you got a fat lip, you ain’t gonna be so happy if I go in for a kiss now.”

“I will be… though perhaps you would… find it unpleasant. I’m… bleeding.”

“Nah, it’s stopped. But if you keep talking, you’ll start it up again.” He takes Cas’ hand and brings it to his lips. “I’ll get you later, sweetheart, don’t you worry about that. Better not get erased from existence before we get to…”

“Celebrate?”

“Don’t know if we can call it that anymore. Get it on like it’s our last night on earth, maybe.”

“I will celebrate _you_.” Cas says, and it hits him like a punch to the gut. After everything, after even this… 

“You hush up and rest.” He shakes his head, blinking away a wetness he hopes Cas won’t notice. He has to keep it together right now, he has to take care of him, he has to… he has to do something. “Let me take care of you. You hear?”

“I believe they call it… a big ten-four.”

“ _Hush_.” But he smiles in spite of himself at that. “Sing to you, if you can keep your mouth shut and behave.”

Cas does just that, closes his eyes and does what he can to relax and let Dean clean and patch him up, strip him down to his underwear… He’d wanted his first time doing this to be sexier, but you can’t always get what you want. He can give him a sponge-bath with the towels, bandage what needs bandaging, ointments and stuff for what needs… ointmenting. And then he can get him into his sweatpants, lay a blanket over his bare chest and arms.

“Ah, caught you smiling at me, that’s the way it should be, like a leaf is to a tree, so fine. Ah, all the good times we had, I sang love songs so glad, always smiling, never sad, so fine…”

It’s not as bad as he feared, with the blood cleaned away. The bruises look less livid than he expected them to get. He still wishes he could have taken the beating on himself, but it’s heartening. And as he sings, Cas just… lets himself drift a little. Barely winces when Dean has to touch something tender. Lets himself be prodded to check for broken bones with only the slightest grunt of protest. Sighs, even, when Dean washes and dries parts of him that hadn’t been walloped to hell and back. 

Instead of grabbing an extra blanket, he goes to the closet and gets the softest, heaviest flannel shirt, lays that out over Cas instead. 

“There. That’ll keep you warm.” He touches his hair. “Warm enough. Now I’m gonna sit right here while you sleep, and I ain’t moving an inch ‘til you’re doing better.”

“Thank you…” Cas smiles, as much as the split lip allows. “Dean? I love you, very much.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know, you sap. I love you. That’s why I’m pissed as hell right now.” He adds, though he’s pretty sure he sounds way too goopy to take seriously on that one. He can hear the tremor in his own voice, the telltale wetness and the choked-off tightness in his throat. 

Jack and Sam come knocking eventually, to find him sitting over Cas, silently crying-- tears he wipes away hastily before letting them in, but he’s pretty sure he’s not fooling anyone.

“He’s sleeping.” 

“You should eat.” Jack pushes the bowl of soup he’d come bearing on Dean anyway. 

“I’m sorry.” Sam says, keeps Jack between them like he thinks Dean might take a swing at him. Which is a fair worry to have, all things considered, but he doesn’t want to hit his brother. He held a gun on him not so long ago and he still feels sick every time that memory rears its ugly head. Besides, the two of them at each other’s throats is what Chuck had been pushing for all these years… why give it to him now for free?

“Yeah, well… hate to say I told you so.” He shrugs, and takes the soup, and sits back down on the edge of the bed. 

“Is Cas gonna be okay?”

“Okay as anyone can be, with… you know. It’s not as bad as it looked like it was gonna be, he--” Dean shakes his head, has to close his eyes tight a moment and just focus on keeping it together. “He needs time to recover and I don’t know how much time we have. But there’s no reason he can’t-- Nothing’s broken. He passed out before I could try and give him an aspirin, maybe I should’ve done that first, but when he wakes up… I’ll get him to drink some water, and he can down a couple painkillers. He’s… he’s gonna be okay. But he’s done, Sam.” Dean turns from Jack to Sam at that. “Whatever next plan you come up with, you leave Cas out of it. He’s not in any kind of shape to fight, and he could be down for a long time. And you know… you know if you bring up the _hint_ of a possibility of him being useful he’ll do it, but he _can’t_. You hear me?”

“Yeah, loud and clear.”

Dean falls quiet after that, finishes his soup without much tasting it and lets Jack take the bowl back. Sam lingers, shuffling from foot to foot and standing over him as he sits over Cas.

“This really… this isn’t how I saw it going.” He offers. “I never would have… I mean, it was a risk for all of us, but I-- I’m sorry. I know you just got him back. I know it… it took you two long enough, to get this far. Look, Dean, for what it’s worth…”

“Don’t.”

“I just want you to be happy, man. There’s a lot… there’s a lot you gave up for me. I’m betting there’s more than I’ll ever know. Maybe neither of us was ever really going to get that life, retirement and picket fences and apple pie, maybe we wouldn’t know what to do with it if we got it, but… someone who loves you, you deserve that.”

“Okay, what part of ‘don’t’ sounds like ‘let’s have an emotional conversation right now’?”

“Sorry.”

“It’s okay, just--”

“It’s just, you’re my brother--”

“Yeah, okay.”

“And I love you.” Sam finishes, shrugging.

“I am so pissed with you right now, but yes, okay, I love you, too. Shit, do we have to do this right now? Because I’m at my limit with emotional honesty and having feelings. I’m at my limit!”

“Do you want a hug?”

“Shut up. Yes.” He lets Sam fold him up in a hug, and just kind of sinks into it. “Bitch.”

“Jerk.” Sam laughs.

“I want good things for you, too. Picket fence things, or… something close to it. We’re gonna get her back, we’re gonna figure it out. It’s gonna be you and me, though. Whatever you need me to do, I will do it, but Cas stays here. Maybe Jack can… look out for him. Maybe if we die trying, they can look out for each other. In an empty world… forever… Nah, we gotta fix this.”

“Yeah. No idea how.” He sighs, chin dropping down to Dean’s shoulder. “But otherwise we just kind of… wait around until we run out of edible food and potable water.”

“How can we run out of water? You just… boil it, man. There’s water all over the place, it’s still gonna rain some of the time and we get more water. Starving is gonna be a problem, ‘cause I don’t know shit about farming and it’s a little late to learn, and hunting and fishing are out because there are no animals. So I mean we’re boned. Are we done hugging?”

“Yeah, sure.”

They let go and straighten up. Dean returns to the edge of the bed, taking Cas’ hand again. Bringing it back up, focusing on the feel of him, the warmth of his skin and the shape of each knuckle he presses to his lips. Turns Cas’ hand over in his to kiss the heel, his palm. Tries to give Cas back all the tender, attentive care Cas has given him in the brief time since his return, tries to be as comforting as he’s found him. 

“Wait, do that again.” Sam says, which means he had not just let himself out after the hug like he should have.

“Okay, do we need to have a real talk about boundaries here?” Dean scowls over at him.

“No-- no, look.” He leans over them, pointing at Cas’ face. “Dude, he’s _better_.”

“What are you talking about?” 

The second the words are out of his mouth, though, he sees it. Cas might not be totally healed, but the split lip is gone. 

“Did you do that?” Sam looks between them, and just stops himself from prodding at Cas’ face before Dean has to swoop in and slap his hand away.

He slaps his hand away anyway, but not as hard as he might have.

“I can’t have done that, I don’t have healing powers. I don’t have any powers. Cas doesn’t have powers.” He frowns. Cas doesn’t have powers… except that he can still see Dean’s soul and stuff, and not anyone else’s. Which doesn’t exactly help Dean make any sense of the situation, but it’s less freaky if it’s something the both of them have and not just something he can do now. 

“Okay, well, I’m just telling you, I watched him get better while you were… doing your thing. I mean, okay, not all the way better, but better!”

“I’m not smart enough for this.” Dean groans, dropping his head into his hands. 

“Nobody is smart enough for this. Nobody is smart enough for any of this.” Sam drops down to the floor, folding his legs and leaning against the bed next to Dean’s legs. “Nobody is smart enough to figure out how to break into that book without Death. Nobody is smart enough to figure out how to kill _god_. None of us are smart enough for any of the shit we’re facing. Nobody could be.”

“So… what? We give up?”

“No. We just… accept that we’re dumbasses, cosmically speaking, and we’re not prepared enough, and that’s okay because nobody in the _world_ is prepared for any of this.”

“I mean, there _is_ nobody in the world except us.”

“We’ll… maybe not ‘figure it out’, but… get lucky? Okay, maybe not that, either. When do we ever get lucky?” Sam shakes his head.

Dean looks down at Cas. Battered, out like a light, but already way more healed than he has any right to be, and alive, which he has no right to be. 

“I think we’re lucky when it counts.”

Sam pushes himself back up to his feet, claps a hand on Dean’s shoulder, and leaves him to sit over Cas. 

Dean doesn’t know how or why the healing mojo worked, and a part of him doesn’t know if he wants to be _able_ to do it, but he wants Cas to be able to _get_ it, so he leans over him, and he starts at the center of his forehead, and he just… kisses him. Just soft, chaste little things, but each one carries the focus of his intent, carries the utmost desire for Cas to be a little less hurt, a little more comfortable. 

“Been driving all night, hands wet on the wheel…” He croons, taking Cas’ hand again and gently massaging it. “There’s a voice in my head that drives my heel. It’s my baby calling, says I need you here, and it’s half past four and I’m shifting gears… When he is lonely and the longing gets too much, he sends a cable coming in from above. Don’t need no phone at all…”

He doesn’t know if the singing helps, but it means the room’s not so quiet and he doesn’t have to think of things to say. And even if it doesn’t help-- even if it’s objectively not good at all-- it can’t hurt, right? There’s a lot in his head, there’s a lot in his heart, but putting it into words isn’t going to happen, so he sings Radar Love and then he sings Born to Run, and then he sings as much of I Drove All Night as he can get through before he breaks down sobbing, before he slides off the bed and kneels beside it so that he can lay his head beside Cas’ shoulder. 

He doesn’t make a big production out of it, crying. A couple big sobs, and then it’s just intermittent sniffling, tears that hit the pillow or soak into the collar of his shirt, the shaking of his shoulders. He gets it all out, the tears run dry, his throat feels thick and his head feels stuffy but he’s a little bit lighter.

“Hello, Dean.” Cas turns towards him slightly, a clumsy hand comes up to make a pass over his hair. 

“Hey, Cas.” He angles himself enough to kiss Cas’ cheek, before he sits up. “You want an aspirin? Something to eat?”

“Well, let’s try sitting up first.” He says, with a wry smile. Then he stops, brow furrowing as he brings his fingers to his not-so-split lip. “Well.”

“Yeah…”

“That was unexpectedly rapid. Humans don’t normally heal over cuts so quickly.” It’s almost a question, despite all his experience with humans and as one. 

“No, it’s some freaky shit.” Dean agrees, helping him to sit up, rearranging the pillows. “Gonna get you that aspirin. Don’t worry about anything.”

There’s a knock on the door before he has the pills in his hand, and he sighs. If this is going to be any kind of a conversation, he’s not ready for it, but if this is for Cas…

“It’s open!” He calls, and holds the water glass steady at Cas’ lips but lets him guide the tilting.

“I thought…” Jack ducks in, bowl of soup once again in hand.

“Jack.” Cas smiles and beckons him over, and so Dean perches on the other side of the bed so that Jack can sit with Cas while he eats, too. “Thank you, that’s very thoughtful.”

“I just thought you’d be hungry when you woke up. And…” He bites his lip around a frown, glancing between Cas and Dean. “I thought I felt you wake up.”

“Oh, so it’s not just me with the freaky shit.” Dean laughs. He’s not sure why ‘laugh’ is what he goes to in the moment, but it is. 

“Dean, language. Jack is an impressionable young boy.”

“He’s an impressionable young boy we’ve taught to kill things, now I can’t swear? Are we all missing the bigger point here? The Jack-is- _not_ -totally-depowered point?”

“A fair point. Fatherhood is a strange maze to navigate.”

“I don’t know, my old man taught me to kill things. Swore in front of me a lot, too. I may not be working from the best playbook here myself.”

“You did a good job with Sam. You’re still the man I would most like to have at my side for this.”

“Seriously, you gotta stop saying nice things to me.” He shakes his head, blinking away tears he’s pretty sure will dehydrate him if he lets them fall at this point. Which is as good an excuse as any to get up and turn his back to the others while he refills the water glass he guesses he and Cas are sharing now.

“I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

“Yeah, figures you wouldn’t wanna make things easy on me.”

“I know Sam said all of us are only human now… but I don’t feel that way.” Jack says, and when Dean turns back to him and Cas, he sees the wide-eyed little kid look on his face. Kind of look that reminds him of when Sam was just little, in spite of himself and in spite of the fact that Jack looks nothing like Sam at age five or… or whatever.

“What do you feel like?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well… hey, welcome to the club, kid, ‘cause I don’t know what I feel like, either. And I know I’m human. You guys want some time to talk over… stuff?”

“Hm, perhaps it would be for the best.” Cas nods, though he snares Dean’s hand before he can leave, and brings it up to his lips. “I hope I am equipped to help Jack put a handle on what he is feeling.”

“Okay, well I’m gonna grab a shower, then.” He leaves the bed, grabs an armload of fresh clothes. 

It’s not the furthest he’s been from Cas since his return from the Empty, but it is the furthest he’s been from him since his beatdown from Chuck, and it’s less bearable than he’d expected it to be. He thought he was just going to take a shower, a long enough one to let Jack have a turn to talk to Cas, and while he’s washing his hair it’s fine. He’d rather be with Cas, but he’s not in _agony_. Somewhere along the line, when he’s letting hot water beat against his aching shoulders, the strain of the day finally really hitting him, that’s when the anxiety starts squeezing its fist around his heart.

Now he knows it’s actually a pretty apt metaphor, so he’s got that going for himself.

“Cas is _fine_.” He tells himself, because thinking it in his head’s not enough. “He’s with Jack, having a father-son heart to heart and he’s _fine_. He’s had his aspirin and a glass of water and some soup and his lip is better and okay, shit’s weird, but he’s _fine_. He wouldn’t want you freaking out like a baby every time he’s not in your direct line of sight, what’s the matter with you?”

He’s literally being a baby right now, struggling to stay calm and rational like just because he can’t see the man, he’s stopped existing, he is being ridiculous.

Okay, sure, a lot of people have stopped existing. Mostly while he hasn’t been watching. But he has no reason to think that’s going to happen to Cas. There’s just an itch whenever they’re apart and after this, it’s worse than ever. 

He dresses for comfort, post-shower, goes back to his room to see Cas is tucked back down to rest, though he’s still awake and talking softly with Jack. 

Jack’s helped him re-settle onto his own side of the bed, rather than the center of it. He’s left room for Dean to lie down with him. He’s also gotten him under the blankets, though Cas is still holding onto Dean’s shirt. 

“I’ll go… wash this.” Jack stands, picking up the empty bowl and flashing Dean a hopeful smile. It’s kind of an obvious excuse to give them a little alone time, but Dean’s not complaining. 

“Thanks.” He ruffles Jack’s hair. “Hey… just, thanks.”

He sees him out before going back to the bed, crawling under the covers and resting one hand over Cas’ heart. 

“Beloved…” Cas strokes his face. “What troubles you now?”

“Other than the very reasonable things to be troubled by? Not much.”

“Humor me.”

“I just don’t… like being away from you. You got sucked up into the Empty in a scene straight out of… fucking Spawn, and it’s a miracle I get you back, but then you get your ass handed to you by Chuck and… I mean I know, historically, I’m a guy who can’t catch a break, but the past couple days have been a whole new level of not catching a break.”

“I apologize.”

“You--”

“I was used as a weapon against you today. He learned that hurting me would provoke a reaction. I regret that I was the cause of your pain. I think that’s a reasonable feeling to have.”

“You’re not supposed to apologize for getting your ass beat. Dammit, Cas, you-- you’re apologizing to me? When I’m the reason he pulverized you so bad?”

“I suppose I also incurred some small amount of wrath.” He gives Dean a languid smirk, strokes his face again. “When I became the architect of my own fate. When I loved you. And nothing could stop me loving you. There was so much that we were put through, so many decisions our hands were forced to, so many things we didn’t even realize we were fighting… Through it all, I have loved you. I have defied every word he meant to write.”

“Shit. Is that what we’re doing?”

“Isn’t it?”

“No, I mean…” He closes his eyes, taking the hand from his cheek and holding it between his own. “Cas, I need you to be better. I need you to be okay. I _need_ you to be, because I need you, and because-- because you hurt, it hurts me, so… And nothing can happen to you, nothing serious, because I haven’t kissed you yet, and like hell will I accept the end of the world when I haven’t kissed you. So you’re going to feel better. You just are, because-- because I said so, dammit, because he’s not allowed to hurt us anymore.”

He’s a little afraid to open his eyes again. Afraid something will be different, afraid nothing will be. Afraid he’s been a fool to hope, and who does he think he is spitting in the face of god anyway?

He opens his eyes.

So does Cas. Both of them, even the one that was just about swollen shut a moment ago.


End file.
